The Meridian City Council on Tuesday gave engineers a green light to move forward with the installation of two new water wells at the city’s north freshwater treatment plant.

In a 4-1 vote, with Councilman Dwayne Davis voting no, the council approved an agreement with The Mississippi Department of Health for a $6,699,116 loan through the Drinking Water System’s Improvements Revolving Loan Fund.

Jason Gault, of Kimley Horn, an engineering firm contracted to help the city with projects relating to its physical water and sewer infrastructure, said the work will include installing the wells and approximately 5,000 feet of piping.

“The project is the installation of two new wells and some transmission main to get it to the treatment plant,” he said.

Meridian currently operates three wells at its north freshwater plant, which is responsible for supplying clean, potable water to homes and businesses on the north side of town, Gault said. The dividing line between the north and south treatment plants is roughly around 20th Street, he said.

Not all wells are created equal, however, and one of the three north plant wells is capable of producing twice the water as the other two. Unfortunately, that well has had issues, and the city runs into capacity issues when it goes down, Gault said.

“We just went through a similar situation where you had two wells down and you were having to pump from the south to the north through the booster pump stations,” he said.

Adding the additional wells will provide the city with much needed redundancy in the event one or more of the north plant wells go down, Gault said.

The city will also see some financial help from the project, Gault said. Of the $6.69 million loan, $4.57 million will be forgiven, he said, leaving the city to pay back just $2.1 million.

“Essentially we’re two-thirds off of that amount,” he said. “This is not something that happens very often, and from what we understand it was because of the BIL grant funding, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding.”

Although the intention of the project is to install two wells, Gault said current construction prices might make that unrealistic with the available funding. The project will be bid as one well, he said, with a second well as an alternate to give the city some flexibility.

Even one more well will go a long way in boosting the city’s capacity to supply fresh water, he said.

“It’s officially for two wells. We’re trying for two wells. We’re going to do everything we can to do two wells with this money,” he said. “But I’m not promising you right now that we can get two wells with that.”